Get on with it
I always make a point to contact people who look like they need help with their sites. It might be a e-newsletter I’ve been sent made out of block graphics and that definitely hasn’t been tested in Gmail, a flyer with a URL that produces a 404 page or a business card that has a URL that leads to a ’site coming soon’ message.
Calling people up and talking about it seems to generate an awkward defensiveness in them and they usualy claim the solution is “in hand”. I’ve had businesses say to me “Oh, that’s going to be online in May” (Wouldn’t it be better for it to be online now?), or “We’ve just got ourselves a new web designer” (Checking online a fortnight later and seeing the same blank page you begin to wonder how good they are!) or “it must be our hosting company” (So why don’t you want to change them?).
It’s not difficult: get online.
You don’t need the flashiest site, you don’t need to wait for your new marketing campaign to be up and running and you definitely don’t need to wait for the IT person you’ve found to do the site to have 5 minutes spare so that he can knock you up a Joomla site.
Do it now. Do it properly, but do it right away. Every day you’re not there is a day you’re losing business.
So how did you get around their objections and win yourself some new business?
I explain the benefits of an immediate online presence and the small amount of time it can take to get online but the frustration is with the people that won’t be told. I have to remind myself that it’s not me that they are making their excuses to – just themselves!
I think that the positive thing is to keep doing the thing I mentioned at the start of the post; about taking any opportunity you can to contact people about their site (or lack of!).